Nepal Time Now

What this page shows

So you want to know what time it is in Nepal right now. Maybe you have a call with someone there, a flight to catch, a match kicking off on local time, or someone to reach before their evening is over. That is what the clock at the top of this page is for. It shows the current time in Nepal and ticks forward every second, so there is nothing for you to work out by hand.

Nepal keeps a single time zone across the whole country, so this clock is good everywhere, from the lowlands of the Terai up to the high mountains. Wherever in the world you are reading from, it keeps itself right on its own, and it is simple, because Nepal time never changes through the year.

Nepal does not change its clocks

Here is one easy thing about Nepal time. Nepal does not use daylight saving. There is no spring forward and no fall back, so the country stays on the same clock all year round, Nepal Time, five hours and forty-five minutes ahead of UTC.

So there are no change dates to track here. Whenever you look, Nepal is at UTC plus 5:45, and the clock above simply shows that time. The interesting part of Nepal time is that unusual three-quarter-hour offset, which the next section gets into.

What time zone Nepal is in

Nepal runs on Nepal Time, five hours and forty-five minutes ahead of UTC, the single clock used across the whole country. That offset is one of the rarest in the world. Almost every nation keeps a whole hour, or at most a half hour, from UTC. Only a few use a quarter-hour offset at all, and UTC plus 5:45 is used by Nepal and nowhere else.

It carries a quiet sense of national identity. Until 1986, Nepal kept the same clock as India, UTC plus 5:30. It then advanced fifteen minutes to UTC plus 5:45, fixing its time to a meridian referenced to Gaurishankar, a Himalayan peak that stands between Kathmandu and Everest. The change set Nepal apart from its much larger neighbour by a quarter of an hour, and gave the country a clock that is genuinely its own. So when it is 12 noon in Nepal, it is a quarter to twelve across the border in India.

Time difference from Nepal to other places

Nepal never changes its clocks, and because of the quarter-hour offset, the gap to most places lands on a fifteen or forty-five. The places that do use daylight saving, like London and New York, shift by an hour against Nepal between their winter and summer. Here is the quick reference, assuming it is 12 noon in Nepal.

A few quick examples

Let us run a few, so you can see how this works.

Say it is 12 noon in Nepal. Just across the border, India is fifteen minutes behind at a quarter to twelve. Singapore is two and a quarter hours ahead at 2:15 in the afternoon, and Tokyo three and a quarter hours ahead at 3:15.

Now the long hauls west. In the winter, London is five hours and forty-five minutes behind Nepal, so 12 noon here is a quarter past six in the morning in London, and New York, ten and three quarter hours behind, is at a quarter past one in the morning. The quarter-hour offset is why these all land on a fifteen rather than on the hour.

Because those places use daylight saving and Nepal does not, the gap shifts by an hour in their summer. London moves to four and three quarter hours behind and New York to nine and three quarter. So for a call that has to land just right, check the live clock rather than the rule of thumb.

A couple of things about Nepal time

Nepal runs across a fair range of latitude and a huge range of altitude, from the lowland Terai at about 26 degrees north up to the high Himalaya, so the length of the day varies a little with where you are. Around Kathmandu, the day swings from roughly fourteen hours in summer to a little over ten in winter. In the mountains, the high peaks add their own twist: the sun can clear the eastern ridges well after it has technically risen, and drop behind the western ones before it has truly set, so the daylight felt in a deep valley can be shorter than the clock implies.

On the clock-against-sun question, Nepal comes out remarkably true, which is the whole point of the offset. Rather than round to a neighbour's clock, Nepal fixed its time to a meridian close to the heart of the country, so the sun reaches its highest within a few minutes of 12 noon by the clock in central Nepal. The odd-looking quarter-hour offset is the one that keeps the clock honest against the sun.

Other places to compare

Nepal keeps its own unique offset, so nowhere else shares it exactly. For the capital and the close-but-not-quite neighbour, here are a couple to jump to:

• Kathmandu time now, the capital
• India time now, fifteen minutes behind
• New Delhi time now, also fifteen minutes behind

And if it is the global reference Nepal is measured from that you are after, see UTC Time Now.

Questions people ask

What time is it in Nepal right now?

The clock near the top of this page is the answer, and it updates every second. Nepal keeps one time zone and does not use daylight saving, so the time shown is always correct, anywhere in the country.

Why is Nepal on a 45-minute offset?

Nepal keeps UTC plus 5:45 because it fits the country's true position. It moved to this offset in 1986, referenced to a meridian near the peak of Gaurishankar, which set Nepal fifteen minutes ahead of India and gave it a clock of its own.

What is the time difference between Nepal and India?

Nepal is fifteen minutes ahead of India, all year. So when it is 12 noon in Nepal, it is a quarter to twelve in Delhi or Mumbai.

What time zone is Nepal in?

Nepal Time, five hours and forty-five minutes ahead of UTC, held all year and used across the whole country. It is a unique offset, used by Nepal alone.

What is the time difference between Nepal and London?

London is normally five hours and forty-five minutes behind Nepal, or four hours and forty-five minutes when London is on summer time. The gap shifts because London uses daylight saving and Nepal does not.

What is the IANA name for Nepal time?

It is Asia/Kathmandu in the IANA time zone database, the time data your phone and your computer use. That single identifier covers the whole country at UTC plus 5:45, and it is what drives the live clock on this page.

References

1. Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). Time Zone Database (the tz database), home of the Asia/Kathmandu identifier and its UTC plus 5:45 offset. https://www.iana.org/time-zones
2. Nepal Bureau of Standards and Metrology (NBSM), the national standards body of Nepal. https://www.nbsm.gov.np
3. Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM), Time Department, which maintains Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), the reference Nepal Time is measured from. https://www.bipm.org/en/work-programme/time